Please don't sit alone like me.

 Gradually emerging. But still taking. some time to work out what's going on, inside my mind. anyone got any tips? 

But seriously, I'm cool. I just need to get it together.

x

oh you'd be surprised how we race while our lives erased

 Yeah, now I've had enough, really. Need to reset my mind, and my life.

Right on the kick drum.

Tired, so tired.

 And I'm not quite sure why.

It's not been an especially hectic day, not especially frustrating, or miserable. But I feel happy to have reached its end. I did manage to get out on the bike, so at least there's that. And my IJ suddenly started playing this - which has reappeared in my musical life, over the past few months.

It's a wonderfully aimless song - that sense of beautiful drift, of quiet determination (and not so quiet, at the end!). It was a relic of my Xfm day, which is where I first learned to love it. So many memories of my life shifting, in 1999 and 2000. I'm guessing that's why it holds such a special place in my heart - it has an inbuilt narrative, which constantly reminds me of where I was, what I did, what I achieved. 

My difficult year.

It's time for me to own it, really. Failure is as much a part of my life as success. And the fecund is as much a part of my makeup as those fallow times. It's time that I grab hold of all that bedevils me and cling tightly to the pain and disappointment to learn its lessons. 

 

Memories, and Regrets.

 So many of each. And, i'm not even sure that person who triggered this little wave of thoughts will ever see this. Oddly, I'm also quite sure that it doesn't matter, any more. Though I look back with so much fondness, at our time together, the wave of emotions are things which concern me, things which I need to evaluate. Things which I can, and will, learn from. 

I remember fun fairs, paisley shirts, a birthday party which led to it all. Long walks back from the tube station - some of which were more eventful than they should have been. Rainfall on the roof of a tent. Watching the world pass by, on the Picadilly Line out to the suburbs, being unsure what I should do. 

I was younger then, but I was also so foolish, so unprepared to deal with what life was delivering to me.

I regret that now.

And I've been attempting to reset my spirits

By doing one of the things that always seems. to help: retreating into the music I loved as a kid. But it's not just about the music per se, it's more than that. What I always look for is music that seemed to surround not just me, but everyone, at that time. The albums which filled the racks of the shops. The albums which - no matter where you went - a mate seemed to have a copy. Ubiquity, crossed with popularity. I loved things which were musically great, but were part of the fabric of life in general. They were bigger than just my own taste. Pink Floyd are a perfect example of this - I mean, yes, the albums are amazing, but they were also this huge, monolithic.....thing. Something which stretched out across everyone I knew. 

And that's making me feel happy. It's the end of the 70s again, and I'm sitting in front of a Dansette. This is playing, and all is well in my world, but it's OK everywhere else, as well. 

It's almost nice, to know you're not alone.

 My mental health has been absolutely crushed by the last couple of months. By trying to navigate a minefield of decisions, principles, family situations, personal logistics, band politics - you name it.

Attempting to reach a final position has felt exhausting and, most of all, lonely. I feel like I'm the only person in the world struggling with this.

But - evidently, I'm not. 

downturn, update.

 Well, yes.

My mental health really dropped off the edge of the cliff, there. Kind of explains the lack of updates, doesn't it? (Having said that, the good ship Westway is still looking ridiculously prolific, in terms of 2025 content, so it's fine.)

But it's been a trying time, it really has. chief among the factors - US touring. It's looking like this won't happen this year, because - well, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out, does it? But there are some other, personal factors in the stew of issues, and it's been hard, on the whole band. Many emails, travelling back and forth. I'll try and whack something on the FB page, ASAP.

Anyway, at least I've been able to cycle, A LOT. Honestly, without that, I don't know what I would have done. That sense of escape and freedom has been a constant source of comfort, but also strength for me. 

There's always a point, on my rides, where my brain finally ceases to swirl around in the doom loop, and I approach some sort of clarity. Repetition, in the form of pedalling, seems to bring me out of my funk. Plus, other grooves can take over. Normally, it's Motorik beats, which rise and tick along in my mind. A welcome release from the devils which have beset me over the past couple of months. 

If you'd like to know what that sudden Motorik pulse of clarity sounds like - well, it's usually something like this.